By the time I left the border between Vietnam and Cambodia it was 1PM. Before I reached the Mekong River I caught up with a bus full of people that I shared another bus from Saigon to the border with. This bus was waiting on the other side of the border for them. As I realized that I in fact didn’t know where to go in Phnom Penh to look for some guesthouse I figured that the easiest way was to follow this bus as they were surely heading for the guesthouse area.

Only when we reached Mekong I came to realize that there was no bridge. I passed this place on my way to Vietnam a couple of weeks ago and at that time I did wonder for a while where was the bridge that I simply assumed to be there by looking at my GPS map where the road continued on the other side… So we had to take the ferry across. While waiting for another ferry that we would fit onto a girl that I talked to on the bus from Saigon to the border was passing by me. I greeted her with a “Hello” and she replied shortly not even giving me a single look. As she passed by I insisted: “Excuse me”… No reply. She must have been thinking that I probably was one of the locals trying to offer her something to buy and since she was coming from Vietnam she must have had built a level of immunity to these people. I just wanted to ask her about their destination but she didn’t give me a chance. It was quite awkward.

On the other side I waited for the bus to get off the barge and followed the bus on a sealed but bumpy and dusty road (this article could easily have been named “Dusty business 3” for that matter) to Phnom Penh. I could have arrived to the Cambodian capital in half the time and without having clouds of dust and exhaust fumes cast at me, but such was the price of not being prepared for Phnom Penh. I actually received a Phnom Penh map from the guide who got out of the bus when they stopped to check out what the cloud coming from their engine at one point was all about, but it was still safer to follow them.

Sure enough, they led me to the central guesthouse area in Phnom Penh where I found a small guesthouse (N11.56039 E104.91814) fitting my budget. It was USD3 per night and it was probably one of the very few (I haven’t found any others myself) with an inside space for my bike. To my surprise there were another two bigger size bikes in there already – one was only a Honda 250 dirt bike but the other looked like I might have finally found another fellow motorbike traveler after a long time I haven’t met any. This bike was a Honda Transalp 650. When I got upstairs where the rooms are I was even more pleased as there was a community area as there was in my first guesthouse in Asia – the Shirah’s Guesthouse in Melaka, Malaysia. I loved the community area there and at that time thought that it was gonna be like that everywhere in Asia. This was sadly my mistake and this guesthouse here was only the second one like that. I was overjoyed to find two people sitting there already. I’ve gotten to know them just a little later after I moved my panniers with my things to my new room.

Both of these people were in fact English teachers. The younger one does not really seem to be a social type but the other one – Steve – an older Irish guy – is very friendly and pleasant to talk to. He has been here for (I think he said) 17 years already and it’s him who rides the 250 Honda parked downstairs. I asked him about the rider of the Transalp and learned that the bike belongs to a Belgian guy named Phillippe who has been roaming the world for already 7 years! OK, that was definitely someone I wanted to meet and talk to. I got the chance just one hour later.

Phillippe is also a very nice bloke and he currently seems to have settled a bit here in Phnom Penh. He has got a Cambodian girlfriend here and so Phnom Penh serves as his base for his numerous exploration expeditions around Cambodia, for which he actually rents a 250cc dirt bike as well since the terrain is apparently mostly not suited for the much heavier 650 Transalp. He seems to have fun except having just cured himself(hopefully) from two strains of malaria that he contracted during his last trip to the jungle somewhere in the north of Cambodia. One of his two other companions on this trip has contracted one of the strains of malaria too plus a Dengue fever. He was apparently in a very bad condition even though the malaria strain he got was the less dangerous one of the two that Phillippe had. But combine this with Dengue fever and your body is in serious mess. Phillippe had the worst strain first while still on the trip and than 3 weeks later he got the other one with obviously a different incubation period.

That evening, after a very long time, I had a proper restaurant meal brought to me to the lounge room of the guesthouse. It was pure heaven. It got me thinking again why I try to save every cent eating at the food stalls on the street, food that I don’t really like, while here, for only a fraction more I get proper meal with meat in it and tasting heavenly. I still don’t have access to most of my traveling money but I think I will not “starve” myself anymore and will spend the budgeted amounts for food, which easily covers restaurant meals at least twice a day.

And for the people who know me this is how I looked like after a two week struggle in Vietnam without shaving tools (or anything else for that matter):